It is well known that persons required to wear heavy protective upper body garments often suffer from neck, back and shoulder pain, as a direct result of the weight of such heavy protective garments. This problem is exacerbated as the weight and wearing time of the garment increase.
One common use of such heavy protective garments is to provide the wearer with protection from ionizing radiation, such as X-rays. For example, this need applies to medical, scientific and industrial personnel as they use X-ray imaging in medical procedures and in the inspection and analysis of materials.
Lead is the common shielding material used in these X-ray protective garments, causing the garments to be very heavy, often weighing in excess of 15 pounds. Further, many of these X-ray procedures are of a long duration. For example, medical procedures requiring X-ray imaging may extend for many hours and technicians and doctors may also have a number of shorter procedures scheduled one after the other, resulting in extended wearing time of these heavy protective garments.
Another common area for the use of heavy protective garments is in fire fighting. Firefighters often wear heavy heat/fire protective coats for long periods of time, as well as wearing heavy equipment (such as breathing apparatus) that all bear down on the shoulders
The heavy weight of these protective garments and other shoulder born equipment and the long periods that they must sometimes be worn combine to create fatigue, pain and even can lead to chronic pathology in the back/spine, neck and shoulders of some wearers.
Others have attempted to address this well recognized problem by proposing devices that intend to transfer the weight of the protective garment from the shoulders to the waist and hips of the wearer. For example, Maine (U.S. Pat. No. 3,996,620) and also McCoy (U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,025) describe radiation protection aprons with securing flaps, wing panels and ties that are intended to more evenly distribute the weight of the garment between the wearer's shoulders and waist. Others, such as Hoffman (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,527,288 & 4,602,386) describe means for supporting part of the weight of the garment on the wearer's belt or trousers with the use of clips, hooks or brackets that are integrally attached to the protective garment. Still others, including Herbert (U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,146 and also Marchion U.S. Pat. No. 5,834,789) describe radiation protective garments that include in their design various, one piece vertical stiffeners or stay members that are incorporated into the garment and secured by a strap or belt at the wearer's waist, such that the weight of the apron is transferred, via the vertical stiffeners or stay members to the wearer's waist.
Marchion (U.S. Pat. No. 5,844,246) also teaches a radiation protective garment that incorporates rigid or semi-rigid stay member(s) into the garment. These one piece stay member(s) are intended to transfer the weight of the garment to the waist/pelvic area of the wearer by means of securely cinching a support belt over the bottom portions of the stay member(s) at the waist of the wearer. '246 further claims a method for supporting a radiation protection garment with a stay member(s) that is worn under the garment and that is independent of the garment.
Effectively, '246 and the X-ray Attenuating Apron taught by Linton ('146), for example, place the wearer's upper body (above the waist) in a confining cage, comprised of the rigid/semi-rigid stay member(s), support belt secured tightly around the wearer's waist, and further confined by the garment being supported by said stay member(s). This situation limits the wearer's necessary normal range of motion and the ability to easily and naturally carryout desired and necessary work functions.
It is therefore clear that the teachings of '246 and others, for a method of supporting the weight of a protective garment, describes a method that trades off the loss of the wearer's normal range of motion in order to achieve effective support/weight transfer of the garment, as is the stated objective of this prior art.
Further, '246, teaching to raise a stay member(s) after tightly cinching the belt over the bottom portion of the stay member(s) (and after the wearer has put on the garment over the stay members) would require significant manual force and would require this same difficult readjustment each time the device is removed and put back on by the same wearer.
'246 describes a one piece stay member, attached at its lower end to a support belt and extending from the waist area portion of the wearer over a respective shoulder of said wearer. '246 further describes different length stay member(s) to accommodate different size wearers and different size garments. '246 does not teach or suggest any varying of the length of a given stay member(s) to reduce the number of different sizes of said stay member(s) necessary to fit persons of differing heights.
Hoffman ('288 & '386) does not teach the use of vertical support stays, but rather hooks incorporated into the garment to support the garment on the waist belt of the wearer. This method can transfer only the weight of the lower part of the garment (portion below said hook) to the waist belt and does not address the weight of the portion of the garment above the hooks/waist area of the wearer.
In summary, the prior approaches to address the need to transfer the weight of a heavy protective garment off the shoulders, back and neck of the wearer to the wearer's waist and hips involve either protective garments that incorporate rigid stay members, attached to a waist belt, as a part of the garment, or a support belt (worn about the waist) to which is/are rigidly attached one or more to rigid or semi-rigid stay members; or a clipping systems that transfer only a portion of the weight of the garment off of the wearer's shoulders, to the wearer's waist/hip area. All of these approaches, as discussed above, have certain disadvantages that limit their utility and comfort by limiting or interfering with the freedom of movement of the wearer.